Rangel: McCain’s Service ‘Admirable’ But Not Connected to Being a Good Elected Official

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday defended retired Gen. Wesley Clark’s remark questioning the pertinence of John McCain’s military service to his ability to govern.

Rangel, on Fox News, said that McCain’s service in Vietnam was “admirable”

“And we should spend the rest of our lives thanking people for doing that,” Rangel said. “It doesn’t have any connection at all in being a good senator, as being a good president.”

Rangel was asked whether he was upset at Clark’s remark Sunday that “riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down,” as McCain had done, is not “a qualification to be president.”

Rangel went onto say that his own four years of military service didn’t make him a better congressman.

“I could have done so many things in life that probably could have been more productive in terms of being able to resolve legislative and other type of things,” he said. “I think my training in law school better prepared me to be a lawmaker than getting shot in Korea, as I did in 1950. But I think that people who serve should be treated differently. I think people put their lives in harm’s way.”